


A Good Son

by Fandom_Trash224



Series: The Killjoys [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Murder, Origin Story, Original Character-centric, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:12:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Trash224/pseuds/Fandom_Trash224
Summary: Wendyl Cobblepot tries very hard to be a good son, but everyone has a limit.





	A Good Son

**Author's Note:**

> this is uh, for my OC, Wendyl Cobblepot, AKA Bluetail! I actually have a whole set of DC OCs I've created, but this was the first one I got around to doing, so I hope you enjoy!

From the day he was taken into the Cobblepot family at the age of eight, he knew something was off about his newfound parent. 

It began when he was given his first self-defense lesson, something that, even though he was only nine, he knew wasn’t normal for children to be given unless they were  _ in  _ danger of being attacked. None of the children from the foster home he had run from had ever talked about it, and none of the foster parents from any previous home had ever given one. 

But, like a good son, Wendyl didn’t say anything. He went through with the lessons, agreeing to keep them going until Oswald said they could stop. Maybe that’s just how people did things in the upper rung of society, he wouldn’t have known.

However, he began to suspect things weren’t right again, this time when he was thirteen. His father was angry about his work, as he so commonly was, and had locked himself in his meeting room with several of his underlings. Wendyl had never bothered to listen in before, but his father was yelling so  _ loud _ , so  _ angrily _ , that Wendyl soon found himself with his ear pressed up against the door, straining to make out the words. 

“--down by twenty percent! All because that damn Gordon is working with Dent to ‘clean up Gotham’. Bah--” Wendyl heard his father slam a hand down onto the table “Now, to make matters  _ worse _ , the damn  _ Batman  _ is after us. We need to take extra precautions, now, and ensure that all plans to move the weapons are not only kept secret, but  _ destroyed _ , is that understood?”

Wendyl had practically run back to his room, pretending to be asleep when Oswald came to check in on him. Wendyl didn’t want to look at his father, much less  _ talk  _ to him. Though Wendyl didn’t have much knowledge on politics, he knew who Batman was. Batman was a  _ good  _ guy, a guy who beat up criminals and corrupt policemen, a guy who saved the city over and over again, despite earning little to nothing in return. He was, in short, a  _ hero _ . 

And Batman was after his father.

But, of course, Wendyl said nothing to anyone. Not to Batman, not to his father, not a single soul. He was a good son.

It only got worse as he grew up. At fourteen, his father was caught and arrested by Batman. By fifteen, his father had gotten out. Wendyl had heard rumors about him paying off the government, others about him breaking out and paying off the guards and police to turn a blind eye. Wendyl wanted to say so much: say how he wanted his father to stop, warn the police of his father’s plots and plans, find Batman and tell him everything, but he never did. He said nothing, because he was a  _ good son _ .

But, when he was sixteen, everything changed. 

He had been called into his father’s office on urgent business, interrupting his walk through the aviary and filling him with worry. Had something happened to his father? Did Wendyl do something? Did Oswald somehow figure out what Wendyl had been thinking of his way of life?

The answer was no to all of those, Wendyl found. It was much worse. 

“I-I’m sorry father, but could you repeat that? I don’t think I heard that correctly.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did, Wendyl,” Oswald said, unable to hide the smile on his face “You, my boy, are the heir to the Cobblepot family. That means my wealth, my name, and, most importantly: my empire.”

His empire? Did he mean the empire of lies? The empire of secrets? The empire of  _ crime _ ?

Like a good son, he didn’t say any of that.

“Empire?” Was all he asked.

“Yes. You’re a young man now, Wendyl, the age I was when  _ my  _ father got me my first job as an umbrella boy for a mob boss,” Wendyl’s breath hitched, but his father didn’t seem to notice, as he stood up and began to hobble around the room with his cane. 

“It was a dreadful time, truly. I was always looked down upon, constantly degraded and insulted. To make matters worse, they killed my parents for being moles to a rival family. It was the day they killed my family that I decided that I would  _ never  _ be looked down upon again, do you understand?”

Wendyl nodded silently as he father glanced over. He didn’t dare speak, terrified that all that would come out would be a refusal of his father’s wishes, or worse, outright hatred of the empire he was meant to inherit. Oswald simply chuckled before continuing. 

“Of course you do. You’re smart, and my own son, I should’ve known you’d understand,” Oswald fully turned towards Wendyl, who was now doing his best to hide the absolutely horrified expression on his face, but was obviously failing based on Oswald’s frown “There’s nothing to be nervous about, son. I’m only keeping you from suffering the humiliation I had to endure, and when it is finally your time, you shall become one of powerful men in Gotham. Perhaps even more powerful than I!”

Oswald let out a hearty laugh, and Wendyl managed to force one out as well, though it was weak and awkward.

“What do you say, Wendyl? Are you ready to learn what it truly means to be a Cobblepot?”

There were many answers Wendyl wanted to give. No being the top one, naturally, but furthermore, if “being a Cobblepot” meant doing what he heard his father doing, shady deals and suspicious accidents, well… Wendyl wasn’t sure he wanted to  _ be  _ a Cobblepot.

But, of course, he had been a Cobblepot for years at that point. He was Oswald’s  _ son _ , and anyone who dare disagree would be aggressively corrected, both by father and son. Wendyl had been taken under Oswald’s wing after trying to  _ steal  _ from the mob boss, and had been treated almost like a prince under the roof of the Cobblepot manor. Oswald was by no means a perfect father, but he was still  _ Wendyl’s  _ father.

And Wendyl was a good son, wasn’t he?

“Of course, father.” Was exactly what a good son would say.

It was a year later, when he was seventeen, that he realized he couldn’t do it.

The blood coating his hands was warm, slowly growing sticky as it dried against it as he waited for his father to finish cleaning the knife that Wendyl had used just moments before to slit the woman’s throat.

Wendyl was staring down at her body, taking in the appearance of a middle-aged woman. Unable to see her face, he was simple staring at a sliced-open neck, and the straight black hair that laid against it. According to his father, she had been unable to make payments for over three months, much farther than Oswald’s kindness was willing to go. She had been dragged in, kicking and screaming for mercy, slipping in and out of english and what Wendyl had assumed to be chinese. Wendyl’s chinese was rusty, certainly, but he knew enough to know that she was not only begging for her life, but the life of others. Her family. 

_ Oh god. _

Wendyl had barely made it to the toilet bowl in the bathroom down the hall before he lost  the dinner that he and his father had eaten just hours before. Pork, gravy, various other sides and vegetables and dished that Wendyl loved. 

He should’ve known that he was going to have to do something like that. Oswald only did that when he knew Wendyl wouldn’t like what they were about to do.

When he was done, his brain finally caught up with his body. He had quite possibly just killed a wife, or a sister, or a cousin, or, oh  _ god  _ help him, a  _ mother _ . She was an innocent woman that couldn’t support her family  _ and  _ pay Oswald, and he had just  _ killed  _ her. 

The last of his meal left his stomach at that thought.

As he slowly sat up and pressed himself against the wall next to the toilet, a small part of his brain was aware of the red, bloody handprints he had just left on the rim of the toilet, and thought about how his father would certainly chew him out for it. Mustering what strength he had, he shakily stood, and washed his hands free of the woman’s blood, then his face of the vomit.

When he was done, he looked up into the mirror and stared at himself, taking his appearance. As he did, his mind wandered around the course of what had happened that night, grasping to random thoughts and paths he could’ve taken, when he suddenly found himself latching onto one in particular:

“ _ I can’t do this anymore. _ ”

He hadn’t even realized he had said it aloud until he watched his lips make the words themselves. He was right, though. He couldn’t. He couldn’t be the heir his father wanted. He couldn’t kill innocent people like that, he couldn’t lie and swindle unsuspecting people who were desperate enough to need his help, he couldn’t be his father.

He couldn’t be a good son. Not anymore. 

The rest of the night went by in a blur. As did the next day. And the next. At some point on the third day after the woman’s death, he found himself in the aviary his father owned. Birds of all types surrounded him, their various calls like music to his ears. A welcome distraction from the talking of his father and tutors. 

His mind was still stuck in that night, though, his thoughts a constant loop of “I can’t do this anymore” and “I need to do something about this”, but what  _ could  _ he do? 

He sighed, sitting down on a bench in the center of the aviary. The answer was nothing. He had dug his own grave, surely, accepting his father’s proposal. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, he knew that. Every plan in his brain ended up in two ways: his father dead, or Wendyl himself dead. He did not like  _ either  _ of those possibilities, so he just sat there, wallowing in his self-pity. He turned his head up towards the glass dome that made up the ceiling of the aviary, closing his eyes in deep thought. 

He was interrupted by a strange “ _ tac _ ” noise coming from next to him, startling him from his thoughts as he whipped his head around to find the source. There, sitting next to him, was a small, plump bird with a blue tail and rump, as well as an orange-red flank, which he quickly recognized to be a red-flanked bluetail. 

He couldn’t help but smile at the small bird, slowly reaching out his hand for it to perch on, which it did, quickly hopping up onto his finger, and then hopping up to sit on his shoulder, just in the crook of his neck. It continued its call, from it’s new perch, effectively keeping Wendyl from falling asleep there, which was both a blessing and a curse for the young man. He sighed again, looking up through the ceiling once more when something from the outside caught his eye.

He had lived in Gotham long enough to recognize the Batsignal with ease, as well as understand its importance. The police needed help fighting Rogues or some other important investigation (surprising no one), so they called on the World’s Greatest Detective, Batman, to help protect the city. And he always did, without fail. Again, Wendyl smiled at it, unable to think about how Batman was inadvertently helping him by putting his father behind bars, or investigating his gang. With his father being busy, Wendyl didn’t have to do his “heir training”, and if his father was arrested, well, it was a good thing, wasn’t it.

That’s when everything in his mind clicked together, and he practically fell of the bench he was sitting on by jolting forward. Somehow, the bird on his shoulder managed to hold on, though it made a rather panicked “ _ tac _ ” at the sudden movement.

He was surely mad, for thinking what he was thinking. Turning against his father and his father’s colleagues? Becoming a creature of the night while also training to  _ avoid  _ those types of people? Betray everything he’s ever known?

Do the right thing, even if it meant being a bad son?

The bird on his shoulder suddenly took off for the small bush in front of the bench Wendyl was sat on, making direct eye-contact with him for only a moment before disappearing into the foliage. Somehow, that brief moment of eye contact was enough for Wendyl to make his decision. 

He stood up, a sense of purpose filling his being. Maybe he wasn’t a good son anymore, but if being a good son meant being an awful person, then he wasn’t willing to do it. As a chorus of “ _ tac tac tac _ ”s  filled the aviary, Wendyl’s smile only widened in an almost mischievously manner, as if it were an inside joke that only he and the bluetails knew.

And thus, Wendyl Cobblepot himself became Bluetail. 

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on my dc sideblog: gothamhell.tumblr.com
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated and loved!


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